CNN Student News 받아적기 (11.30)

Those are Afghanistan, pakistan and the United States. They're connected by the war on terror but that's also what's causing this tension between them. There have been accusations for months. Pakistan says Afghanisan is allowing millitant fighters to live there. Afghanistan says pakisan is supporting terrorists who launched attacks against Afghan forces. One official said the two countries could end up in a millitary conflict.
The relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. is pretty rough right now, too. The countries have fought together against Al-Qaida, but the head of the terrorist group, Osama bin Laden was found inside Pakistan. Pakistan's still angry about the U.S.'s raid inside its borders to kill Bin Laden. Pakistan's also upset about a NATO airstrike last week that killed two dozen Pakistani troops. U.S commanders are investigationg what happened. Pakitan responded by boycotting a conference on the future of Afghanistan. Other officials said that decision would hurt efforts to try to creat stability in this region.


Now that word can be used to describe American airlines. It filed for bankrupcy yesterday. It doensn't mean that the company is going out of business. Certain kind of bankrupcy let companies reorganize and that's what American airlines is planning to do. During that time, the airlines says it will honor all of its tickets and reservations, and it plans to run a nomal flight schedule. So if you have a trip booked on American airlines, you shouldn't be affected. American was one of the last major U.S. airlines that actually hadn't filed for bankrupcy. But company official said they weren't able to compete with other airlines that can spend less money, because they've already gone through bankrupcy reorganizations.


Congress has a busy few weeks ahead as the year winds down. This week, lawmakers are considering whether or not to extend a couple of things. First, a payroll tax cut. Less money has been taken out of AMerican worker's paychecks which means more money in their pockets. If Congress doesn't extend it, it would be like raising taxes. But the extension would cost around $115 billion and that money have to come from somewhere. 
Congress is also considering an extension of long-term employment benefits. They're set to run out for more than 2 million Americans at the start of 2012. The federal government has been helping pay to keep them going, but the price tag for extending those is around $55 billion.


Well, there`s a new study out about head injuries in sports. You might be thinking about football. This one is about soccer. It was just a small study, just 39 players, so the result will need to be seen in other players before they can be considered conclusive. The research says players who hit the ball with their heads too much, could cause damage to their brains. The study looked at how water molecules through the white matter in the player's brains. In healthy brains, there's solid pattern. In Injured brains, the molecules move more randomly. So how many headers is too many? The study says if you take more than around 1300 headers per year, that's when you could be causing some damage. The effect is similar to head injuries in football. You can see it on this animation, When the head is hit, the brain swells up. 
In the soccer study, scientist said the damage seemed to be connected with memory problems and how quickly player's brains could process information. 
Dr. Sanjay Gupta says the sport isn't what matters here, the big issue is how the brain is affected.

"Keep in mind a lot of the focus has been on football specifically. We've done a lot of reporting on this. But the thing to keep in mind is when you think of the brain, it's the brain movement within the skull. That's the bigger issue, even more so really than the brute force sort of these impacts. so It's how the brain react to the force." 


We want you to send us your I-report. You could do it on practically any digital video camera. We did this on a phone. Tell us in 20 seconds or less what you are looking forward to in 2012. It could be graduation, getting a driver's license or voting. The only thing is, you gotta to be at least 13 years old and we only want to hear you talking, so no music or anything like that. The deadline for this is Thursday, December 8th. Send us your reports in the spotlight section at CNN Student News.com.


And that's where NASA is going right now. The spacecraft got a boost from the rocket launch, heading to the red planet, and should get there around August of next year. It's a 354 million mile trip. But the spacecraft isn't the important part of this mission. That would be what's on board; a rover that will work its way around the surface of Mars for 1 martine year. That's 687 days here on earth. The project has a price tag. It costs around 2 and a half billion dollars. The pay off could be an anwser to an age old question.

Reporter:
Mars, does life exist there? Did it ever? NASA is poised to take its boldest steps toward answering questions that could change forever our view of humanity's place in universe.

"I think the best way of saying why we are so excited about this mission is that sets us up for the future of finally answering that you know, the age old question of 'Does life exist on other plenets?'"

The mission is called 'the Mars Science Labaratory' or 'MSL'. The most sophisticated Vehicle ever sent to Mars, It has a capability to detect signs of life. If it works come next August after traveling 350 million miles, a 2,000 pound, 6-wheel rover called curiosity will arrive at the red planet. Using a thether system never tried before, it will be lowered down to a place called 'the Gale Crater'. A size of a small car, Curiousity is the Cadillac of rovers.

"We are choosing to make the rovers bigger and bigger because we want to cover more ground, we want to be able to put an arm out and drill a rock."

Drill a rock? Why?

"On Mars, If life exists as single cell organisms, or if it ever existed, we'll believe it will be under the ground or inside rocks."

Inside Gale craters, sits what scientists believe, is a layered of mountain. In essence, the history of Mars told in the layers. And if water ever flowed on Mars, it might have been in that crater. Curiosity's arm will collet samples and place them in its onboard laboratory with the ability to detect organic material.

"Now if we discover organic materials on Mars, then it gets exiting. You know, the chances of it may be low. But the payoff is huge. Organic materials are required for life as we know it."

But it won't mean life exists, just a building blocks.

"If you go to the driest desert on earth, can you find life on your samples if you do a year of robotic study? Probably not. It's actually quite difficult. Life has a stick up and make itself seen."

Finding life itself would be left to the next wave of explorers, robotic and perhaps, even human.


Well, before we go, if you have ever wondered how astronauts entertain themselves in space, here's one idea. This quy enjoys playing baseball by himself. First, the pitch in slow motion- Zero gravity helps here. Then he pushes his way down to the other end of the module so he can grab a bat and switch from pitcher to hitter. It's kind of impressive. But he's just getting warmed up. Of course. He's gonna make contact. Right there. But he knew what pitcher was coming. Then it's back to defense, as he springs into the air and makes a diving catch. The Japanese astronaut made this Youtube video during his time on the International space station. Sure he can handle a pop fly but I don't think he got too much practices with ground balls.
We batted around a few pun possibilities before coming with that. You would have "balked" at the others. Still three puns in ten seconds. It's more than a bargain. It's a "steal".